


The Future Freaks Me Out

by sunfair



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 22:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3358361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunfair/pseuds/sunfair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Larissa is just trying to get through college. Her roommate and her bros come through for her in unexpected ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Future Freaks Me Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MWI](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MWI/gifts).



> Happy V-Day to MWI! You wanted ladies being awesome... Lardo is the most awesome. I made up another lady for her to be awesome with, while she becomes best bros with the hockey team.

Larissa becomes manager of the Samwell Men’s Hockey team on a Wednesday afternoon. They’ve already been practicing for weeks, and their first game is in two days, and when she gets back to her freshman dorm room she sits on her bed and goes over the roster that Coach Murray photocopied for her, trying to learn everyone’s names as quickly as she can.

“Oh hey,” she says when her roommate gets in. “How’re you?”

“Ugh,” Tina says, dropping her bag, kicking off her shoes, and pulling her coat off. “Shit is getting real in Fundamentals of Neuroscience. What’re you up to?”

Larissa waves the photocopy. “Finally got a job today.”

“You did?” Tina sits on her bed, folding her legs up. “Doing what?”

“Managing the Men’s Hockey Team.”

Tina laughs. “Wait, for real?”

“Yeah,” Larissa says.

“So.. what is that about? Fetching towels and Gatorade for a bunch of jocks? Do you even like hockey?”

“It’s a job. It’s more than ten hours a week.” Larissa leaves out the part where she’s been watching hockey with her dad her whole life, and how her knowledge of the 2007 Stanley Cup finals even surprised Coach Murray. “It fits my schedule, and my work/study requirement. Also, I think they were a little desperate.”

Tina shrugs. “Alright. Well congrats, then. Are any of them cute at least? Ew, do they have all their teeth?”

Larissa grins. “They have plenty of teeth.”

Practice is always stupidly early, but Larissa drags herself out of bed and makes her way to the rink and doesn’t complain once. The team is comprised of a whole bunch of loud mouths-- especially Shitty, he’s kind of the worst one-- but he basically got her the interview, so whatever. Then there’s Jack. From what Larissa can gather, he’s some sort of Canadian hockey royalty. He’s only a sophomore and he’s already the captain. He definitely doesn’t act like royalty, though; if anything, he’s reserved and a little awkward, full of unwavering determination, and Larissa can easily understand that.

“‘Sup, Zimmermann,” she says, hardly glancing away from her clipboard as he skates up, skidding to a halt beside her.

He leans on the short wall with his elbow. “Hi.”

“You need something?”

Jack shakes his head a little. “No. How’s it going?”

Larissa looks up, just in time to see Ransom and Holster drop their sticks and gloves and start roughhousing on center ice. Practice is more or less finished, but still. She narrows her eyes in contemplation as Ransom goes down with a thud, Holster on top of him.

“Do Rans and Holtzy always wrestle each other after practice like that?”

Jack sighs softly. “Most of the time, yes.”

“Wow.”

“Please don’t quit,” he says, and his sincerity is painful.

“Why would I quit?” Larissa replies.

“Jack! Lardo!” Shitty says as he zips by, and then he spins right back around and stops fast. “Brahs. Kegster. Tonight at the Haus.” He points at Larissa. “If you don’t fucking show up, I’m going to be personally fucking offended.”

“It’s Tuesday,” Jack frowns.

“Overruled,” Shitty declares, and heads off in the direction of the locker room.

Larissa tucks the end of her pen in her mouth and watches him go.

*

She doesn’t quit, but she does get accepted into the exchange program and she goes off to study in Kenya the next fall. It means missing the first half of the hockey season, but it’s too great of an opportunity to turn down. Kenya is gorgeous, and inspiring, and her cohort is wonderful, and her host family is amazing, and Lardo is making some of the best art she’s ever done. She still finds herself missing Samwell though, the art buildings and the river quad and even Faber and the stupid hockey team.

Tina is off studying in London, and they exchange long emails a couple of times a week, and Skype when they can.

It’s Ransom who sends her the best updates, though. She admits to him in a moment of heavy homesickness that she checks the score of every game she’s missed, and that she wishes she could be there. The next day there’s a video message in her inbox, in which he makes every single person on the team say hello to her, even the freshmen she’s never met. It ends with a bunch of cobbled-together clips of practice drills, half of which are abruptly cut short when Jack tells him to put his phone away.

Lardo watches it about twelve times in a row.

The next video he sends her, about a week later, is just Holster singing Taylor Swift and being totally unaware that Ransom ever filmed him. Lardo still puts it on repeat.

Ransom has about a thousand friends on Facebook, but he never fails to comment on her photos and like her updates. He keeps making silly videos to send to her; dumb team antics and away game road trip sing alongs, and before she knows it she’s saying goodbye to Kenya and she’s on a plane back to Boston.

*

“Holy shit, your hair,” Tina says, hugging her so hard that Lardo almost falls backward into the pile of half-unpacked boxes.

She smiles so big her face hurts. “I told you it was gone.”

Tina pulls back to look again. “It looks good, you look fucking fierce.”

“I keep forgetting,” Lardo explains, running her hand against the back of her head. “Like I think it’s just up in a ponytail or some shit.”

“Fuck unpacking, I need to hear all about Kenya,” Tina says, clearing off a spot on the bed so she can sit.

“I’m leaving in like, ten,” Lardo says. “Meeting the boys for that free concert in the student center, are you coming?”

Tina glances around at the chaos of their room. “You go ahead.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Tina grins. “Lunch tomorrow, though, okay?”

“Deal,” Lardo agrees.

Shitty outright tackles her at the Haus, and Jack hugs her tight, and she finally gets to meet Bitty. Ransom and Holster meet up with them at the Student Center but not until the concert has already started. It’s crowded and hot and dark and loud, and Lardo’s view is basically the back of some dude’s t-shirt. She rises up onto her toes, trying to peer toward the stage, but it’s pointless. She has her camera with her, but she can’t even see what she’s trying to shoot. She’s just about to bail to go back to her room and hang with Tina when Holster taps her on the shoulder and leans down so he can shout into her ear.

“You wanna sit on my shoulders?”

Lardo shrugs, then nods a little, and then Holster crouches down and Shitty helps her up so she can sit on top of him. When he rises to his feet again in one easy sweep, Lardo sways and grabs on to his hair and tries not to panic. Suddenly she can see everything, and it’s awesome, and she gets her camera out so fast she almost drops it. Holster grins up at her and she gives him a thumbs up and smooths his hair down where she messed it up.

He doesn’t put her down until they have to go through a doorway to leave.

The next day at lunch, she shows Tina all of her amazing photos from the show. One of them even ends up in the Daily.

*

Eric Bittle is the best thing that could have possibly happened to the Haus. Lardo goes from walking in and wondering what awful odor will invade her senses, to stepping through the door and purposely taking a deep breath for clues as to what Bitty’s been baking. Everything is a lot more orderly, runs more smoothly, and is more harmonious in general since Bitty moved in. He wears his heart right on his sleeve, and worries to death about everyone all the time, and the kitchen window actually has curtains.

Becoming a junior means that Lardo gets access to studio space in the art building. It also means she has a project due every five fucking minutes, or at least it seems that way. It also never fails that her inspiration makes a hasty exit right when she needs to be the most productive. It’s the most frustrating thing in the world, and Lardo’s not one to whine, but Bitty happens to be a pretty good listener.

“Maybe I should switch my major,” Lardo says to the surface of the table, her face in her arms. Annie’s is packed and they’ve grabbed the last table back in the corner.

“What makes you say that?” Bitty asks.

“Because fuck art, that’s why.”

“I can see why you’d get frustrated,” Bitty says gently. He’s so diplomatic. “But I don’t think you should give up, Lardo. I think you have a lot of great art left to make.”

She lifts her head just enough to peer at him and sighs softly. “How’s all the checking stuff going?”

Bitty nods a bit, but frowns some too. “Better. A little. I dunno.”

Lardo untucks one of her hands, offering him her pinkie. “If I can’t give up, neither can you.”

Bitty curls his pinkie finger around hers with a grin. “All right, then.”

She turns up to practice the next morning, and when it’s over Bitty hands her a square white box tied up with a string.

“Cinnamon ginger scones,” he says. “I remember you mentioned liking them. So now you can, you know, have a snack while you make your art.”

“Bits,” Lardo says fondly.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he insists, and she hugs him tight. “I don’t know how else to help.”

“You help so much more than you know,” she says.

*

Lardo can do a lot of things. She can re-create a floorplan from memory and freehand it to scale in a matter of seconds. She can take a whole bunch of scrap metal junk and manipulate it into a sculpture that her professor calls “incendiary.” Lardo never forgets faces, can explain color theory even after six beers, and she can speak fluent Vietnamese. She also keeps the entire hockey team from falling apart on a daily basis, which alone should qualify her for superhero status.

What she can’t do, apparently, is write a five-page essay on the Rococo period with no sleep. At least not while she’s having the worst cramps of her life.

“If you ever loved me,” she says to Tina from under her hoodie, curling up tighter into her desk chair, “you’d put me out of my misery.”

“I helped you outline,” Tina says, looking up from her own coursework. She’s annoyed and Lardo doesn’t blame her. She has enough of her own work to do. “Where are you stuck?”

“Words,” Lardo says. “I hate words.”

“I am so not writing it for you.”

“I know,” Lardo mumbles. “Sorry.”

She re-reads the last sentence she typed, and hits the backspace key slowly over and over to get rid of it.

From somewhere under her piles of notes, her phone chimes with a text. She unearths it and sees it’s from Shitty.

_hows the essay bro?? headed 2 stop n shop u need anythin?_

Lardo hesitates. She really, really doesn’t want to move.

_yea but I need to go myself thanks anyway_

Everything seems too hard: moving, not moving. Finding socks. Putting them on. Her phone chimes again.

_bro I can get it whatever u need. have u eaten? want me 2 bring u a samwich?_

Because sleep deprivation is technically torture, Lardo thinks she might cry.

_that would be so great. thank u_

A few seconds later, Shitty replies. _u got it. no cheese right? what else?? send yr list!!_

Lardo tries to ignore it, but then she pictures Shitty lingering around the Stop n’ Shop waiting for her reply. It’s probably the murder Stop n’ Shop too, and then what if he gets shanked?

 _its ok_ , she sends, and then quickly keeps typing. _I can make myself go buy my own tampons but thank u_.

Shitty’s reply is almost instantaneous. _it’s nbd brah. which kind do u want?_

Lardo sends him the brand and the kind she likes. _but for real u don’t have to??_

Shitty doesn’t respond until almost fifteen minutes later, when he tells her he’s on his way to her dorm. She answers the door when he knocks, and he’s got a Stop n’ Shop bag in one hand and her Samwich in the other.

“Bro,” Lardo says, peering into the Stop n’ Shop bag as she takes it from him. There’s also a bag of M&Ms and a cherry Coke Zero in there. “Seriously, bro.”

“I’d stay and hang but you have an essay to finish,” Shitty says, and then waves hello to Tina. “But come by the Haus later, if you want. Whenever you’re done.”

“Cool,” Lardo agrees.

Shitty holds out his fist for a fist bump. Lardo meets it with her own, and then slides her arm around him to hug him. He pulls her close and gives her a squeeze.

After he’s gone, Lardo sits and unwraps her sandwich and opens her soda.

“Tell me again why you’re not locking that down?” Tina asks.

Lardo makes a face, and finishes chewing before she responds. “It’s not like that. We’re bros.”

“Oh it’s like that,” Tina argues. “You can be bros first, or whatever, but it’s so like that.”

Lardo shrugs, because she’s too tired and hungry to argue. Also, because Tina is probably right. And thirdly, because she has to hurry up and finish this essay so she can go hang out with Shitty.


End file.
